Throy by Jack Vance Page B

the Yips seemed to like the change. They got along well among themselves, since there was nothing to steal and they were too lazy to fight. The big problem was runaways. Once I asked Namour how he could tolerate so many defectors, bur he just laughed. After he got his commission, what the Yips were up to next meant nothing to him.”
    Bodwyn Wook again referred to the yellow paper. “As I mentioned, Barduys is not a registered landholder, though he might be in the process of buying a parcel.”
    “Perhaps that parcel known as Shadow Valley Ranch?” suggested Glawen.
    Bodwyn Wook blinked. “No evidence points in this direction. Commander Chilke is our Rosalia expert; perhaps he has better information on the subject.”
    Chilke shook his head. “I don’t think that either Zigonie or Smonny wanted to sell. The ranch certified them as aristocrats, even though it was relatively small - about seventy thousand square miles, as I recall, which included mountains, lakes and forests. On Rosalia the trees grow big: six or seven hundred feet tall. I measured a featherwood at Shadow Valley which topped off at over eight hundred feet, with tree-waifs living on three different levels. Featherwoods are gray, with lacy white and black foliage. Pinkums are black and yellow, with pink strings dangling from the branches. The tree-waifs use these strings to make rope. Blue mahogany is blue; black chulka is black. Lantern trees are thin and yellow and shine at night; for some reason the tree-waifs won’t go near them, which is good news, if you are strolling through the forest, since you are out of range of the stink-balls.”
    Bodwyn Wook raised high his sparse eyebrows. “What are ‘stink-balls’?”
              “I won’t even guess. Some old friends of Titus from off-world came to visit. One of the ladies, who belonged to the Botanical Society, went out to look for wild flowers. She came back a mess, and Smonny refused to let her in the house. It was a sorry situation; the lady left at once. She said she would never return if that was the way they were going to treat her.”
    Bodwyn Wook grunted. “These ‘tree-waifs,’ I take it are some sort of arboreal animal, like a sylvester, or a slayvink?”
    “I don’t know much about the creatures,” said Chilke. “I lived on the ground; they lived in the trees, which was quite close enough. Sometimes you could hear them singing but when you went to look, they seemed to flicker away and out of sight. If you were quick, you might catch a glimpse of freakish beings with long black arms and legs. I never could figure out which part of them was a head, if any, although they were ugly enough. If you stood peering up through the leaves, they dropped a stink-ball on your head.”
    Bodwyn Wook frowned and touched the top of his bald pate. “These habits suggest a degree of mischievous intelligence.”
    “So it may be. I remember a rather strange story about some biologists who drifted a camp module out over the forest and lowered it into the top of a big yonupa tree. Working from inside the module they observed the tree-waifs and the intimate details of life in the treetops. Every day for a month and a half they reported back to the base by communicator; then suddenly the reports stopped coming. On the third day a flyer went out to investigate. They found the module in good order, with all the staff dead, but they had been dead for three weeks.”
    “So what was the upshot?” demanded Bodwyn Wook.
    “They took the module away and never went back. That was the end of it.”
    “Bah!” growled Bodwyn Wook. “Such tales are rife at every back-alley saloon of the Reach. Now then - as to specifics: Hilda will provide you funds and all needful documents. You will proceed aboard the Mircea Wanderling to Soumjiana on Soum. The L-B District Offices are situated on Hralfus Place; you may make your inquiries there.”
    Glawen and Chilke rose to their feet and prepared to leave the